Administrator looks to end fiscal year in the black

Cost-cutting measures offset lost revenue.

Elizabeth Anne Quinn, 2 1/2, of Hartsville, flips through an "Olivia" book on Wednesday afternoon at the Bluffton Branch Library. Elizabeth is in town for the summer visiting her grandmother, Nancy Bell of Bluffton.

Heather Baldwin of the Beaufort County Auditor's Office helps Joseph Armstrong pay taxes on a new motorcycle Wednesday. The main Auditor's Office in Beaufort is still open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hours have been reduced in other offices.

The Beaufort County financial staff is cutting the current budget while looking ahead to reduce operational costs for the 2011-2012 fiscal year.

Reduced hours at county libraries went into effect Monday. Last week, Memorial Day was an unpaid holiday for employees under the county administrator’s control. It was the first of five furlough days for county employees to be scheduled before the fiscal year ends June 30.

County Auditor Sharon Burris, an elected official outside the purview of the administrator, unilaterally agreed to staff furloughs as well to help out in the budget crisis.

Also, other elected officials — such as the coroner and treasurer — have been asked to participate in furloughs.

“By (Friday) we will be able to calibrate the degree of participation,” Administrator Gary Kubic told the County Council Finance Committee on Monday.

“We were looking at ways to reduce the five-day furlough to something less, but we are going to have to follow through with it,” Kubic said.

“As we finish 2011, the intent which I believe was passed on from you to me is to not find ourselves in a deficit position, not finishing in the red,” he told to committee. “I think we’re going to get there.”

In addition to the furlough program, “we have restricted the rate of expenditures in all areas of the county,” Kubic said.

The county’s operations budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year was $104 million; however, revenue collections are expected to be about $98 million.

LIBRARY HOURS

The administration has eliminated about 90 positions in the last two years, including 21 in the library system – about 25 percent of the staff.

Bluffton Library operations have been reduced from 66 to 40 hours per week. The library branches in Beaufort and Hilton Head Island have been reduced from 60 to 40 hours per week.

Hours were not reduced at the branches in Lobeco, which will still be open 40 hours a week, and on St. Helena Island, which will remain open 22½ hours a week.

By state statute, the reduction in library hours required approval by the S.C. State Library because they receive state funding. The state law requiring at least one library in the county to be open for 66 hours per week was waived by State Library Director David S. Goble.

“I fully understand the budgetary situation that makes this action necessary. It is, however, a most unfortunate necessity,” Goble said in a May 27 letter to county Director of Libraries Wlodek Zaryczny.

“Libraries are needed most by citizens when the economy is at its worst,” Goble wrote.

“Today’s workplace requires citizens, regardless of the type of jobs they seek, to create an email account and negotiate an online application process. For many of our citizens, the public library is the only place they can find an Internet-connected computer and a trusted guide to help them find their way back to work,” he wrote.

“For many others, the library is the only place they have to go to fill the gap in the family entertainment budget,” he wrote. “Soon, computers provided by the library will be the only way some South Carolinians can obtain unemployment benefits.”

In waiving the library access law for one year, Goble urged officials “to restore hours to all county library facilities once the economic recovery is in full swing.”

A constant stream of people flowed in and out of the Bluffton Branch Library on Wednesday afternoon.

Gretchen Benson of Bluffton said she had stopped by the library earlier in the morning, but it was still closed. She returned later to scan the new book section.

“I come in every week or two,” she said. “My daughter gave me a Kindle for Christmas but I still haven’t used it. I just love to browse.”

Nancy Graham agreed.

“There’s just something about holding a book in your hand,” she said.

Both ladies had chosen a few selections.

AUDITOR HOURS

Burris announced June 1 that the main Auditor’s Office in Beaufort will continue to operate from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., but the Bluffton and Hilton Head Island offices will be closed from noon to 1 p.m. for eight days each.

The Bluffton office was closed for an hour Tuesday and will be closed from noon to 1 p.m. today and June 14, 16, 20, 22, 27 and 29.

The Hilton Head office was closed for an hour Tuesday and will be closed from noon to 1 p.m. today and June 15, 17, 22, 24, 28 and 30.

GRIM OUTLOOK

Kubic expects the revenue situation to get worse before it gets better. Nevertheless, he is determined to maintain operations without a tax increase, without tapping the reserve fund and without increasing the county’s debt.

“Going forward in 2012, that $98 million (in revenue) will become about $96 million,” he told the Finance Committee.

“About $95 million will be on the operational side and about $1 million will go from operations to debt…. So we’re heading into what we think is going to be a $95 million operation,” he said.

“We are at the beginning of a 36-month period where we don’t expect anything to change,” he said.

“Reassessment (in 2014) may in fact validate what everybody else already accepts, that property values will be lower than they are now,” Kubic said.

“A $100,000 drop in the value of a mill will bring our revenue down to about $88 million,” he said.

MORE REDUCTIONS

The elimination of 90 positions is expected to save about $3.8 million in the 2011-2012 fiscal year.

Also, reductions in agency allocations total about $1.5 million and include: $643,000 to Beaufort Memorial Hospital, $358,150 each to the University of South Carolina Beaufort and the Technical College of the Lowcountry, $125,000 to economic development, $54,000 to the Solicitor’s Office, $40,000 to Beaufort Jasper Hampton Comprehensive Health Services and $7,000 to the Lowcountry Regional Transportation Authority.

The administration also has reduced proposed country purchased services by about $2 million.

The County Council approved first reading of the proposed budget May 23; second reading is scheduled for Monday and a vote on the third and final reading is expected June 27.